A polygonal mesh may be represented by a collection of vertices, edges, and faces that define the shape and/or boundaries of a three-dimensional object. An edge may be represented by a line connecting two vertices. A vertex may be represented by a point having a certain spatial position. Mesh faces may be represented by various polygonal shapes such as triangles, quads (quadrangles), and/or other regular or irregular polygons. In various illustrative examples, a triangular face may be formed with a closed set of three edges, a quadrilateral face may be formed with a closed set of four edges, etc.
In the context of creating computer-generated imagery, mesh simplification may be employed to create of simplified versions of mesh models. Mesh simplification, also referred to as Level of Detail (LOD) generation, may be employed for generating a simplified version of an original model of an object that may be represented by an artist-authored model of a computer game character. Simplified versions of the original model may be employed to simulate views at the modeled object from various distances.